cooking with bruce and mark

Common Cooking Mistakes #12: Overcrowding Your Pan

Join us as we cook through a new recipe in almost every episode of our podcast, straight from our kitchen to yours. And look for the smaller bonus episodes in which we take down cooking myths or work through some of the common cooking mistakes. We'll make your laugh. Promise.

One of the worst mistakes in cooking is one of the easiest to
fix. Don't overcrowd your pan when you're browning meat for a stew
or braise. Because just like your uncle Manny, food gives off a lot
of liquid when it gets hot. And if your meat is all bunched up
together in the pan, that liquid doesn't hit the bottom of the pan
to evaporate, it pools around and on top of the meat and all that
meat in the pan steams instead of browns. Now you probably can't
the image of uncle Manny lying on a towel up against a thousand
other people on a hot beach, all giving off liquid that has nowhere
to go: You're welcome. So give it some room and let it sit there
searing away. Don't poke at it, don't move it around. Let it brown
and let the juices run to the bottom of the pot to evaporate and
you'll have upped your cooking game like a pro.

About the Podcast

Join Bruce Weinstein, the chef, and Mark Scarbrough, the writer, as they work their way through recipes and culinary myths. Once a week, they'll cook through a recipe in real time--complete with all the travails that could bring to this long-married couple. What's more, once a week they'll gleefully disabuse you of the greatest cooking mistakes they've seen in their years teaching classes, distilled into short, funny episodes. Twice a week at the same price! (Zero dollars.) You can't beat that. Plus, you'll laugh. Promise.